To keep the 36 computers up and running, power cables descend from the ceiling enclosed in poles, and network cables snake along the perimeter of Jim Thompson’s media and technology classroom.

“I’ve got power cables going one way, network cables going another way and desks made for electric typewriters from the ‘70s,” Thompson said.

The Anacortes High School classroom is filled with up to 32 students, who regularly get kicked off the server because the network is so far away and because the students do video editing and photography, which takes a lot of memory and speed.

“The building was never intended to have computers in here and now it’s full of computers,” Thompson said. “While our computers are really great and the software is cutting edge, the facility is not up to speed with the program.”

Thompson said the program isn’t suffering, citing the success students have had at film festivals, photography shows and with the yearbook. But a new facility would help the media classes become more professional, run smoother and offer more opportunities for collaboration and community use.

The school’s career and technical education classrooms and labs were built for another purpose in another era. They were for sewing machines, electric typewriters and auto shop in the 1970s, but now classrooms are needed for metals, robotics and media production.

The Anacortes School District is asking voters for a 17.5-year $59.8 million bond — including $23.9 million for a new career and technology education wing at Anacortes High School.

If the bond passes, the current one-story, roughly 30,000-square-foot wing will be torn down and a new, two-story wing more than double the size will be built. The wing will house the career and technical education classes as well as other subjects, like science, to encourage collaborative work.

“The existing CTE wing does not cost-effectively lend itself to adaptation into a modern CTE facility,” said Bryan Young, the district’s project manager.

He said the heating and ventilation have exceeded their usable lives, the electrical service is maxed out, the roof is a collection of patches and the structure will not support a second floor.

District leaders say the bond will eliminate problems like overcrowding in classrooms and inadequate electrical wiring and allow more collaborative work between disciplines.

“CTE opens the doors to unlimited possibilities and helps make the connection between classroom learning, real-world work opportunities and connecting to post secondary options,” said Marge Thomas, AHS career and technical education director. “We’re preparing kids for a highly technical, global society.”

Career and technical education focuses on contextual learning, where academic subjects are taught with real-world relevance.

Thompson said the purpose of the classes is to open opportunities and to give students an idea of what the working world is like.

“We’re trying to get them trained with what a job is like — expectations, deadlines, work ethic,” he said. “What we do give them, as opposed to straight academic classes, is a chance to produce and create things, original media, that has a deadline and a lot of visibility.”

For example, students under Thompson’s guidance produce The Rock, a video program shown monthly to the entire school. Episodes, with topics that range from sledding to culminating projects, are posted on the school’s Web site.

“They find out really what it takes to do something with really high quality,” Thompson said.

They learn skills and then put those skills to use, receiving feedback not just from teachers but from other students, parents and even community members, he said.

Wood teacher Bob Aahl said the classes make students well-rounded.

“There’s a lot of value in the fact that we don’t always just teach career people,” he said.

Students feel good when they complete a project and classes encourage them to do well.

“Mom and Dad and the neighbors ohh and ahh over (their finished projects),” Aahl said. “This is one of the few places they’re asked to do the best they can do.”

Advanced students in his class are working on projects like a gun cabinet, poker table, wall clock and baseball bat.

“I think it’s a great class. I’ve always had full classes and the kids respond to it,” he said.

Classes offered at AHS include computer maintenance, digital media production, stagecraft design, building construction, metals technology and sports medicine.

Senior Becca Fakkema has taken a CTE course every year. Beginning with building construction her freshman year and engineering and drafting her sophomore year, Fakkema is now in her third year of metals technology.

“She’s using her math skills and probably learning new skills,” Thomas said.

Fakkema plans to major in engineering at a four-year college after graduation. She said her experience in the CTE courses has solidified her desire to go into the field.

“I want to go into engineering because I like math and science but also what comes out of the engineering process,” she said. “I actually get to use my math classes once in a while in metals.”

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 18 of the 20 fastest growing occupations in the next decade will require career and technical education.

And AHS plans to keep up with the demand by offering challenging classes in relevant areas.

“We continue to research the jobs that are growing in Skagit County and plan for the programs needed to train students — medical, marine, construction and manufacturing. Our programs need to coincide with advances in industry and technology,” Thomas said.

Jobs have become increasingly complex and CTE students must take classes that have strong academic components, she said. Students read technical materials, use math to solve real-world problems and write thought-provoking assignments in a team learning environment.

“Our AHS staff is meeting this challenge of helping our students meet higher academic and technical skills by raising the rigor of CTE instruction,” Thomas said.

All CTE programs must meet standards established by the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. Several of those standards address the facilities, student safety, equipment and environment.

And that’s where the high school’s CTE classes run into limitations.

The bond will pay to construct a $23.9 million, two-story, roughly 30,000-square-foot wing. The area will feature a large computer lab in the middle of the first floor surrounded by classrooms for metals and wood, construction, fine arts, robotics, computer drafting, physics, consumer science, marketing and visual arts. Plenty of storage space is planned.

The second floor will have a large multi-media room in the middle featuring a computer lab and studios, surrounded by classrooms for business, child development, science, marine technology and others. Three additional science classrooms will be located in a hallway connected to the central school building.

The new facility will cluster all the classes in one area, creating more opportunities for collaboration.

With the proposed plans, Thompson said the music program could come in to record the choir and the stagecraft class could learn about recording.

“We just don’t have the space for that now,” he said. “We could do a lot more collaboration and get a lot more use out of the spaces.”

There would also be more opportunity for more community use.

Thompson’s current classroom features a combination control room and storage room that is used to film The Rock and teach photography. He has to teach the students in shifts because the space is so small.

“I can’t get a whole class in there,” he said.

In the wood shop, Aahl said the renovation will allow the school to bring in more equipment that is being used in the wood business, such as computer controlled routers and lasers.

Aahl taught in Seattle for 24 years before coming to Anacortes. He said his current classroom is the smallest he’s ever worked in. The 2,700-square-foot room holds more than a dozen machines and about 25 students.

“We make do, of course, but it’s been a struggle,” he said.

Students are required to take two credits of career and technical education classes to graduate, but more students are enrolled in CTE courses than any other department.

Classes are for every type of student — those who plan to go directly into the work force, attend community college or go to a four-year university, Thomas said. 

“It opens the doors to anything a student may want to do,” she said. “They’re doing higher-level thinking.”

According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, about 98 percent of high school students take one or more CTE classes. Last semester at AHS, 830 students were enrolled in a CTE course.

Students have the opportunity to earn college credit in high school as part of the Tech Prep program. Last year, 266 AHS students received 1,396 college credits.

Thompson sees overlap in the students who take his media and technology classes. Most go on to college, trade school or art school and some have goals to make a living using their skills.

In her metals class this semester, Fakkema is using a drafting program to design items that are then cut on a CNC plasma machine. The machine’s table has a grid that corresponds to a grid on the computer.

“It’s a matter of getting the machine to do what you want it to do,” she said.

The first year of metals is spent making sample projects, like toolboxes. Now, Fakkema has the knowledge and opportunity to experiment more with the CNC machine and coloring metals.

“(Metals teacher Val) Boyce is open to letting me try things out,” she said. “I didn’t realize how fun it could be until I started playing around with the drafting and the metal.”

This semester she plans to make the back of a chair and lawn art for her mom. In the past she’s fixed her sister’s sled and fixed items from her job as a deck hand.

“You come out of high school and have a job to pick up,” she said. “I haven’t gotten a job because of it but I’ve used my skills.”

Other Anacortes school bond articles:
School bond would fund classrooms, stadium, and renovate high school library, Brodniak Hall
Synthetic turf would allow more field use at same cost, school leaders say
Bond would unsnarl traffic in Mount Erie Elementary School dropoff zone, build new gym
School bond would replace ‘woefully inadequate’ maintenance building
District asking voters to ‘protect our investment’
Q & A: School bond costs, benefits examined
Inside the Anacortes school bond
Largest bond request in county history
School survey shows respondents favor same proposal
Anacortes School District’s $62.9 million bond goes to voters